Dancing Your Pants Off for Jesus
18:29 – Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Church services in Africa are much different than in Canada. The main difference: dancing. Dancing in African church is to a Chris Tomlin worship song in North American church. People worship God through dance.
I am in Africa. I was at an African worship service. There was groovy music. (Africa + church service + music = DANCE (not the EURO CUP 2012 Jay Onrait & Dan O’Toole “donce” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnRsYAbEWVs, we’re talking AFRICAN dance!)
Therefore, I must dance.
So I danced. I danced with all my might.
Things were getting out of hand. Or should I say, getting out of foot. I like to make people laugh. I was dancing; people were laughing. I wanted more though. That’s when things took a turn… for the worst. My over-vaulting ambition for further hilarity proved to be the end of me. God taught me to be content with what he has given me: sub-par dance skills and pants.
Things were going well. I was grooving. Local children were laughing, dancing, and showing me up in the dance moves department. Things needed to be turned up, so I claimed it as my responsibility to do so. I remembered what my mentor always told me: “If you want to turn things UP, you must get LOW.” So that’s what I did. I got low, low, low. (Insert the high school oldie: “Low” by Flo-Rida).
The first time down went according to plan. Children laughed and copied me. “ More, more, more” I thought! “Since that went so well I needed to do it again.” I was unaware of the significant damage to the structural integrity of my pant’s stitching, especially in the gluteal region of my trousers that I had inflicted the first time I got low, low, low.
The second time I got low, all of the sudden I felt much more free, flexible, and even felt a cool breeze where you shouldn’t feel a cool breeze (well, in public that is).. It took about 1.8 seconds for me to realize that that’s because the seam had been compromised. A gaping hole had been created that rendered Grandma Jo’s best patch and Singer sewing machine ineffective.
My dreams of increasing the laughter on the dance floor came true (“Thanks God” (little bit of sarcasm there)). Everyone lost it when I did a slow and intentional 360 degree turn.
“Well,” I thought to myself “I have large hole in my pants, I don’t have a spare pair, and we are leaving for home soon. Might as well keep dancing!”
So I kept on dancing. I began to feel even more free, flexible, and that cool breeze was getting stronger. The hole was increasing in size. I literally was dancing my pants off. I was dancing before God with all my might and in my linen ephod just like David did in 2 Samuel 6:14.
God had granted my wish of more laughter. God answers prayers. God is hilarious. I received all the laughs and more that I was hoping for. So here’s what you should get from reading this blog: God has a sense of humour, He answers prayers (careful what you wish for), and He will always be glorified – even when one of His children doesn’t have any pants on the dance floor. God was glorified; I definitely was not. Now that’s what I call humility.
P.S. The next day in a sermon, my teammate, Bekah, prepared a message that included 2 Samuel 6:14 (David dancing with all his might in his underwear). Now that’s what I call prophecy. And it came in the form of dancing. God uses any situation – don’t put Him in a box.
